Baseball in 2001

The eventful 2001 major league baseball season, delayed one week by the terrorist attacks on September 11, extended into November for the first time in history and featured a new home-run record by the San Francisco Giants’ Barry Bonds (seeBiographies) and a new World Series champion—the National League (NL) Arizona Diamondbacks, who ended the three-year reign of the American League (AL) New York Yankees in a dramatic seven-game series.

Bonds hit 73 home runs to shatter the mark of the St. Louis Cardinals’ Mark McGwire, who hit 70 in 1998. At the same time, however, major league offensive totals decreased. Runs per game fell from 10.28 in 2000 to 9.55 in 2001, and only 12 players hit 40 or more home runs, 4 fewer than the previous season. Despite the debut of new stadiums in Milwaukee, Wis., and Pittsburgh, Pa., overall attendance was up only slightly, to an average of just over 30,000 per game.

World Series.

The Diamondbacks scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth inning of game seven at home to defeat the Yankees 3–2 and win the World Series four games to three. By doing so, the Arizona team, which debuted in 1998, staged the quickest trip to a title of any franchise in major league history. The previous mark of five years to a championship was established by the Florida Marlins in 1997.

In the Series opener in Phoenix on October 27, the Diamondbacks routed the Yankees 9–1 before a record home crowd of 49,646. Curt Schilling, the team’s star right-handed pitcher, worked seven strong innings for Arizona, while the Diamondbacks collected five runs off New York starter Mike Mussina in three innings. Craig Counsell and Luis Gonzalez hit home runs for the Diamondbacks.

In game two pitcher Randy Johnson, the left-handed ace for Arizona, authored a 4–0 shutout, yielding just three hits and striking out 11 in a complete-game performance. The Diamondbacks held a slim 1–0 lead into the seventh inning when Matt Williams clubbed a three-run home run off the Yankees’ starter and loser, Andy Pettitte.

On October 30 the Series moved to Yankee Stadium, where Pres. George W. Bush tossed out the first pitch before an emotional crowd of 55,820 and Mariano Rivera threw the last pitch in a 2–1 game-three victory for the Yankees. New York’s Roger Clemens pitched seven innings, by which time the Yankees had broken a 1–1 tie on a single by Scott Brosius. Earlier, Jorge Posada had homered for the Yankees against Arizona’s Brian Anderson.

The Diamondbacks were one out away from winning game four in Yankee Stadium on October 31 when Tino Martinez clubbed a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. In the bottom of the 10th, Derek Jeter hit a home run to provide the Yankees a dramatic 4–3 triumph that tied the Series at two games each. Both home runs came against Arizona’s star relief pitcher, Byung-Hyun Kim, who came on in the eighth inning trying to protect a 3–1 lead for Schilling.

The Yankees accomplished another remarkable comeback in game five at Yankee Stadium the next night, which was the first time a World Series game ever had been played in November. Home runs by Steve Finley and Rod Barajas off Mussina staked Arizona to a 2–0 lead in the fifth inning. The Yankees, for the second consecutive night, were down by two runs with two outs in the ninth inning when Brosius hit a game-tying two-run home run off Kim. By the time the defending champions achieved a 3–2 triumph in 12 innings, it was, in fact, early the next morning. Few fans had departed, however, when Alfonso Soriano slashed a single to right field to score the winning run from second base and provide the Yankees a three-games-to-two lead.

When the Diamondbacks returned home for game six before a record Bank One Ballpark crowd of 49,707, they demolished the Yankees 15–2 to square the Series at three games each. The Diamondbacks knocked out Pettitte in two-plus innings and mounted a 12–0 margin by the third for Johnson, who cruised to his second Series victory with a seven-inning stint. The Diamondbacks’ 22 hits broke a single-game Series record of 20, and the 13-run margin of victory was the second largest in Series history.

To win the final game on November 4, the Diamondbacks had to mount a rally against Rivera, one of the most accomplished relief pitchers in history. Arizona had fallen behind by 2–1 on an eighth-inning home run by Soriano. Tony Womack doubled-in one run to forge a 2–2 tie, and then Gonzalez hit a bases-loaded bloop single to score the winning run for the Diamondbacks. Johnson was credited with the victory, his third of the Series, by pitching 11/3innings of relief one night after he had hurled the Diamondbacks to victory in game six. In game seven he finished for Schilling, who had made his third start of the series. Johnson and Schilling shared Most Valuable Player (MVP) honours for the Series.

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